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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32853 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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This is trending on Twitter Jury decides Alex Jones must pay $965 million in Sandy Hook defamation trial

The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay $965 million to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, a jury in Connecticut decided Wednesday.

The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.

It is unclear how much of the verdicts Jones can afford to pay. During the trial in Texas, he testified he couldn’t afford any judgment over $2 million. Free Speech Systems has filed for bankruptcy protection. But an economist testified in the Texas proceeding that Jones and his company were worth as much as $270 million.

There is no way he or his company can afford $1 billion. What is the point of these huge verdicts if there is no hope of it being paid. From what I understand, collecting on a judgment can be as hard as winning. Likely Mr. Jones has various forms of asset protection set up. Texas and Florida have the most generous homestead protection.

Because this is a civil matter , not criminal, it means Mr. Jones can avail himself of these protections.

Can anyone point me to the counterpoints that Jones legitimately tried to work with the court on discovery before the default judgement. I remember reading somewhere that there were a lot of irregularities in this case.

And I can’t say I know who was in the right. Conventional media is saying Jones laughed off the trial.

Does anyone know why the Red Scare podcasters are so warmly positive toward Jones? I know they are not exactly doctrinaire progressives, but that struck me as quite the limb to go out on.

Alex jones is oone of the greatest counter-cultural figures currently living.

It doesn't take very much listening to him before you realize he's a spoken word poet, revivalist preacher, or Landian speculative critic... Its utterly absurd to treat him as someone making factual statements that can be wrong, as opposed to some social/spiritual experimenter.

Hell I wrote 5000 words on how much his rhetoric resembles an ancient rhapsode or politico-religious poet like Dante or Milton, than it does any other commentator alive today...

I still get pings of people saying this is the best thing I've ever written/ or even best motte post which is remarkable when you consider its about someone utterly rejecting empericalism and all the norms that have consolidated into modern rationalism.

Seriously just listen to the guy

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, I suppose.

Terminal contrarianism.

Shame we couldn't have gotten a judgement like this against Oberlin for their harassment lawsuit loss. Could have wiped out their entire endowment.

No it’s not a shame. One bad act shouldn’t destroy a 100 year old institution. Unless the act is super bad like genocide etc. The business received enough money to cover their loss.

Under this doctrine America would just become a lawsuit civilization.

One bad act shouldn’t destroy a 100 year old institution.

But it's OK if it destroys a 50 year old man instead, right?

This feels low effort and a bit of a Democrats response.

Reminds me of their COVID response where to save one 85 year olds life we locked 400 people up and kept 100 kids out of school.

Proportionality matters.

This feels low effort and a bit of a Democrats response.

"Low effort" is platitudes about it being wrong to destroy a 100 year old institution for a bad act in a thread about the destruction of a 50 (well, 48) year old man for a similar bad act.

The judgement against Alex Jones was over $950 million dollars. That's "proportional"? To what?

Two wrong don’t make a right. I have at no point said Alex Jones deserves to pay $950 million. Honestly I think it’s an 8th Ammendment violation.

I have the same view on judgements against my enemies as I do against my allies.

Why would it destroy the institution, rather than lead the institution to be sold to someone else?

Because of loss of the endowment, which was the explicit goal of the person that sliders was responding to.

The size of the Oberlin penalty looks about right to me. Slightly different facts would mean no penalty at all for Oberlin, and the jury wanted to make sure that the lesson got learned this time.

I point you to OP. It already is.

With a generally contentious situation like this one, it seems to me that a symmetry argument is a reasonable sanity check. We're a nation of ~350 million, and the current culture war is decades old. Is there a roughly-comparable example with the valence flipped? If this sort of thing has happened to irresponsible loudmouths of either tribe, I think it's a lot harder to argue that it's a solid example of oppression. If this sort of thing only happens to people Blues don't like, then I think that's a lot more worrying. Are there any examples available of roughly similar situations playing out with a blue-tribe defendant? Prominence of the accused, nature of the offense, resulting harms and severity of punishment seem to be the salient variables. For severity of punishment, I think the exact dollar figure is largely irrelevant, and can reasonably be rounded to "Financially Ruined".

I'll open bidding with Gawker. Disreputable media outfit, though probably with more scale and reach than Jones. Offense I think might be very roughly summed up as "made scummy statements that enabled harassment". The harms in Jones' case are probably worse than Gawker's. The judgement seems roughly similar, with the caveat that Gawker played out years ago and Jones' ordeal is only really beginning.

...If we agree that Jones actually did make knowingly false statements, and that the people he made them about were actually harassed, and there is actually evidence that Jones' statements are why the harassers did what they did, and presuming the result is financial ruin but not more, this does seem (very roughly) comparable to Theil's takedown of Gawker. That leads me to put the breaks on the outrage narrative I'd otherwise slot this into.

Are there better examples?

[EDIT] - And of course, one could also flip it around: is there a blue-tribe case with comparable facts where no lawsuit or prosecution resulted?

A difference between Gawker and Alex Jones is that Gawker is a company and Alex Jones is an individual. What that means is that Gawker can file for bankruptcy as a company and leave much the personal wealth of the individuals involved out of it. The individual who published Hogan's sex tape, A. J. Daulerio, did not have his life ruined and pretty much carried on as usual; He went on to found a website and newsletter called The Small Bow. The individual who founded Gawker, Nick Denton, was "only" on the hook for $10M personally (this sounds like a lot but remember it's 1% of what Alex Jones was fined for) and is apparently running a venture called Dialog Engineers.

Personal bankruptcy doesn't help with judgement?

For Alex Jones? I don't think so. This is bankruptcy proof.

Interestingly, Ryan Holiday interviewed all of the relevant parties for a book about the Gawker trial Conspiracy (well worth a read even if you don't read a lot of non-fiction). Peter Thiel, who bankrolled the case, is explicitly quoted as saying that his goal was never to send Denton to the poorhouse.

The whole Alex Jones trial is banana republic kangaroo court BS. The case would have been thrown out 100x over if it was a different defendant, and now with a ridiculous judgment it is borderline unreasonable for anyone to defend any aspect of the whole farce.

Thrown out? He pretty clearly did the whole “communicating to a third party false statements about a person that result in damage to that person's reputation” thing. Provably false, provably damaging.

I haven’t seen a coherent legal defense of his position. That includes his own lawyers, who apparently decided the best idea was no defense. Are they fishing for mistrial?

Instead, his supporters skip straight to the step where they complain about a biased system.

Would a different defendant have been treated differently? It's true if he was the host of Planet Money and he had an otherwise normal podcast but once in awhile he shared a deranged conspiracy theory about parents of victims of kids who died in school shootings, the damages might be lessened. But probably only because because people who show up for light hearted economics chat aren't hankering to fight a culture war and act on the defamatory information.

Running a hot culture war podcast has higher risks.

Running a hot culture war podcast has higher risks.

This is not arguing against "banana republic kangaroo court BS" -- rather the opposite, in fact.

But it only has higher risks because hot culture war listeners are excitable and the insane drivel he was spewing caused them to hurt people. That doesn't strike me as kangaroo court BS, but rather rule of law trying to enforce a modicum of reasonable behavior. Stated differently, if you want to try to wield that kind of power you need to be more responsible.

He was slandering these completely innocent private citizens at a minimum.

What's on the other side of this argument? We should live in a world where people can blast completely wrong and malicious information about you on a top 50 podcast and the law is powerless to stop them? You don't think that the punishment for that sort of behavior should be "example making"?

But it only has higher risks because hot culture war listeners are excitable and the insane drivel he was spewing caused them to hurt people.

None of these claims were litigated.

We should live in a world where people can blast completely wrong and malicious information about you on a top 50 podcast and the law is powerless to stop them?

We should live in a world where blue-checks who claim Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an AR-15 and killed three black people can be successfully sued for One Billion Dollars. Until then, yes, Alex Jones gets to blast completely wrong information too, and should only be held responsible for the actual harm (not that his statements shocked the conscience of the jury), and should in fact get to defend the case on the merits and not just go directly to the penalty phase.

We should live in a world where blue-checks who claim Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an AR-15 and killed three black people

Bad, but not the same thing?

Wasn't this Rittenhouse claim debatable enough that it had to be factually settled in a court, though? The state prosecutor argued exactly the same thing as the blue checks.

OTOH, as far as I'm aware, the claims Jones made were clearly batshit crazy and would be thrown out instantly by a judge if he ever tried to introduce them in court.

Bad, but not the same thing?

Worse. Jones never accused anyone of a serious crime, nor does he have the reach or credibility of mainstream journalists.

Wasn't this Rittenhouse claim debatable enough that it had to be factually settled in a court, though?

No. That Rittenhouse killed two people, not three, was never in dispute. That neither of those people were black was not in dispute. That he did not carry the gun across state lines was not in dispute; it wasn't clear earlier on but it was by the time many of the blue-check claims were made.

OTOH, as far as I'm aware, the claims Jones made were clearly batshit crazy and would be thrown out instantly by a judge if he ever tried to introduce them in court.

Being "batshit crazy" argues for either "not defamation" or "lower damages", not higher. Because they're less likely to be believed by third parties.

shared a deranged conspiracy theory about parents of victims of kids who died in school shootings, the damages might be lessened.

Sharing a deranged conspiracy theory is bad for the universe, in court what usually happens is the plaintiffs get laughed at and shown the door 2 weeks after they file.

What about the rest of my post?

The damages, as traditionally calculated, would not be lessened. The damages as calculated by an incredibly emotional jury, seemingly empaneled by an emotional judge, might be.

Running a CW podcast shouldn't legally have higher risks. In many ways its supposed to have less than a money podcast, because there are actually very specific rules about financial advice.

I haven't followed this much (like read ~2 articles on it), and I'm probably naive, but I've always intuitively felt that verdicts passed by a randomly chosen jury are probably typically reasonable regarding political motivations. What makes you think differently? (either in this case or in general)

There was no trial on the merits. The judge issued a default judgment then held a trial purely on damages where Jones wasn't allowed to present any evidence that he didn't actually do what they claimed.

Trials aren't supposed to work that way. It's a politically motivated farce.

In general jury decisions are quite reasonable when it comes to who is culpable. But the more emotional and political a case is, the less likely (this is both, but the jury didn't even have the chance to decide on liability here).

In general, jury damage awards are entirely unreasonable. The more political and emotional the more unreasonable, but I've basically never seen one that wasn't greatly modified by the judge or an appellate court.

Jones lost on summary judgment. From the article someone else posted:

He was found liable by default after failing to produce documents. A finding of ultimate liability is technically a permissible sanction for discovery recalcitrance

That isn't summary judgment. Summary judgment = if the facts are as agreed by both parties, one of the parties is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. It is a judgment on the merits, which was not the case re Jones.

That award will almost certainly be brought down. A judge has the authority to unilaterally adjust a jury award in the interests of justice (additur/remittitur), and the power is frequently used in Texas.

Connecticut has a strict limit on punitive damages, so the damages are all compensatory. Given the implausibility of the idea of actual damages being that high (for comparison, OJ Simpson was ordered to pay only $8.5 million in compensatory damages for killing two people), I think it's pretty clear that the jury is trying to do an end run around the punitive damages cap.

If juries are allowed to award arbitrary punitive damages as long as they call them compensatory, then there is, in effect, no cap on punitive damages. An activist judge may allow this to stand, but it seems pretty clearly illegal to me.

Whoops, mixed up the jurisdiction.

What exactly is Alex Jones being held liable for here? Did he say that people were crisis actors, or only imply it? I never see any relevant quotes in these articles.

Does Jones have grounds to appeal? Snyder v Phelps seems like one avenue. Sandy Hook might be considered a matter of public concern given the impact on gun policy discussions it had.

It is pretty undisputed that Alex Jones repeatedly falsely claimed that specific parents, who he named by name, were "crisis actors" who were lying about losing children at Sandy Hook, and that those parents were rather viciously harassed (death threats, etc) by some of his listeners. Whether he is liable for those actions is a different issue, and I don't know enough about the facts to know, but of course normally much of the actual damages from defamation are the result of actions by third parties who hear the defamatory statements, so it is not exactly a stretch.

Snyder v. Phelps is not going to help him: In that case, the Court emphasized that the speech was not directed at a particular person, and for that very reason Snyder was not a defamation case (the trial court dismissed the count alleging defamation). Snyder was basically about the right to make non-defamatory statements which cause emotional distress.

that specific parents, who he named by name,

Pretty sure he only named like one or two.

I read this article a couple days ago which claimed it was procedural:

As it happens, no jury ever found Jones liable for defamation, and no judge ever ruled on the merits of the claims or Jones’ counterclaims. He was found liable by default after failing to produce documents. A finding of ultimate liability is technically a permissible sanction for discovery recalcitrance (refusing to cooperate and produce documents) but it is a draconian one rarely imposed by judges. Suffice to say, the court — with an elected judge, mind you — was not a fan of Jones.

The bankruptcy process is designed specifically to convert unpayable liability into payable debts. It involves plenty of sleuthing and valuation which is not appropriate for the initial trial. The actual damages sought should be proportional to the harm more than the defendant’s perceived value. That avoids some of the worst asymmetries of civil suits.

There’s also the same reason we can stack criminal sentences to ridiculous terms like “seven consecutive life sentences.” It’s so other processes (parole, asset protection) are less likely to suffice.

What is the point of these huge verdicts if there is no hope of it being paid.

To punish him for being Alex Jones, dissident, to put him out of business forever, and as a warning to others who might follow his path.

how much do you think he will pay? If he pays nothing or does not suffer some major material decline in standard of living, then it will not be a good deterrent.

I imagine they'll take everything he owns and then he'll be found dead in some embarrassing way.

Alex Jones dying to an actual conspiracy sounds like someone's trying to redline the irony meter....

It’ll air his books into the public record so the IRS doesn’t need to subpoena anything before nailing him for some minor technical violation that is very in character for Jones.

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